Hey Paul, check out a place called ecooutdoors.com.au for inspiration. I'm not sure if they're up your way but I'm sure you could get materials shipped. They have such a beautiful store with brilliant ideas. I'd be considering a stone that is cool under foot on hot Brisbane days and at least 30mm thick. You have an oval-ish shaped pool so you might consider a small coping stone to replace the brick then move on to a larger stone instead of the dated pebble, maybe a 'cush' limestone or go a bit glam and do a herringbone pattern with the right stone. Good Luck.

We built a pool exactly the same, however we didnt use laminated glass but a monolithic piece of 80mm thick Plexiglass 3mx2m from Germany. This reduced the overall cost of the pool considerably. Pool was fantastic and doubled as a water feature when not in use. Incorporating LED lighting allowed the pool to take on the mood of the night. The only downside we found with the pool was that after heaving swimming and sunscreen the waterline of the Plexiglass would need a clean. Other than that it gained lots of comments and was even used for photo shoots and promo work.

Thanks for that, rach19. I a man no expert but it looks like both issues are happening. I think I detect efflorescence and the grout itself possibly blended poorly. Please call out whoever built your pool (not the tiler as he's not the builder) and complain and say it's not acceptable. There's no way this should be happening so soon.

Choosing a pool finish has been super stressful because once its done its done! Also, it is so hard to determine what a color will look like given the amount of light, depth of the pool, and surrounding landscape. I think I have finally narrowed the selections down to Ocean Blue Pebble Sheen and Midnight Blue Pebble Tech. Does anyone have experience with either of those? Does anyone have experience with any finishes that have the Shimmering Sea sparkling sea shell blend (does it make that much of a difference)? We really could go either way with the Tec or Sheen. It mainly comes down to color. Any advice and photos would be greatly appreciated!